years and patients: Improving Australian Stroke Care

The Australian Stroke Clinical Registry (AuSCR) is a decadelong, national effort to deliver best practice care for people experiencing stroke. AuSCR recently marked dual milestones, celebrating 10 years of operation and 100,000 recorded cases of stroke care.

AuSCR collects information on care provided to someone who has experienced stroke, covering their journey from presentation to hospital, through to health outcomes after 3-6 months.

Real-time monitoring enables hospitals to fix ‘gaps’ in stroke treatments and benchmark their care and patient outcomes against 74 hospitals Australia-wide actively using the registry.

The Florey’s Professor Dominique Cadilhac is custodian of the registry and says evidence shows initiatives like AuSCR work.

“We know that providing the best standard of care to patients hospitalised after stroke can lead to better outcomes, such as decreasing disability, preventable deaths and risk of recurrent stroke in the longer term.”

“This was surprising to us because GABA is primarily thought to inhibit or reduce the excitability of neurons,” said Dr Bryson.

In collaboration with Dr Robert Hatch, fellow researcher in the Florey’s Ion Channels and Human Diseases lab, the team then confirmed the findings by recording different types of interneurons in the presence of GABA. The work was only possible with international collaboration between the Florey, the EPFL Blue Brain Project and the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Integrative Brain Function, combining the Florey’s receptor expertise and data, with modelling expertise and computational infrastructure of Blue Brain.

Professor Steve Petrou agreed that the research may well have significant implications.

“One of the greatest challenges remaining for scientists is understanding the human brain,” said Professor Petrou.

“What we found in our work provides yet another piece of the complex puzzle.”

“We continuously see improved stroke care in hospitals that take insights from the registry and implement quality improvements.”

AuSCR recorded the care provided for Tim McCartin after he experienced two stroke episodes only months apart in 2019. The former high school principal considers himself very lucky to have since made a full recovery and advocates for initiatives like AuSCR that aim to improve stroke care.

“During my time in hospital and rehabilitation I saw firsthand how devastating stroke can be for a lot of people and families,” said Mr McCartin.

“When I learnt of the registry, I thought why not use my experience to be a part of something that can help other people who have had a stroke,” he explained.

AuSCR is a shared consortium between the Florey, The George Institute, The Stroke Foundation and Stroke Society of Australasia.

In addition to informing clinical care standards, data is also used in vital stroke care research including the Florey’s work into understanding risk factors for stroke, effect of exercise on recovery post-stroke and other studies.